Talk of the Triangle

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Hey guys, hey Adam. Hey Melissa, how are you? I'm good, how are you

doing? I am great, so what, what are your favorite Christmas traditions? Do you have anything that you and your wife like to do or that you grew up doing?

You know, yeah, traditions in my family are always a little odd, but my wife and I we we do enjoy decorating the tree.

Do

you?

Okay. You focus on the tree. That is a make a nice fire. We don't have kids, so it's a, it's, it's just our thing, you know, and sometimes we're traveling for Christmas itself. We're going to parent's house. So a lot of times we're decorating that tree and we won't even see it on Christmas day. But we'd love to

decorate that tree.

Nice. Yeah. Nice. What about you? Well, one thing I'm excited about this year and I've, I've done it off and on through my life. One of my earliest memories as a kid was to go see Ira David Wood, and we've talked to him a couple times on the podcast. So this is his last year as Scrooge. So my mom and I are going to go see him on his final day.

I'm excited about that. [00:01:00] But yeah, we go all out with decorating at our house. My, my son who's 16 now started decorating outdoors when I think he was maybe seven or eight. And I'm, I'm talking, it's like a Christmas vomit outside. It's, it's everywhere. He, it, it, the tackier the better. Yes. It's, you know, it is, it is the spot that you can go and, and It's nothing's organized.

Yeah, we don't do that.

It's cute. No, no, see we can't we can't

do that. Oh, do you have an

HOA?

No, no. No, we my wife grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia We're decorating

White

very formal style very very pre colonial colonial style whatever so I'm gonna have you guys over then We're we keep it super classy, which is probably super boring, but we love it Yes.

Boring, but very pretty. I keep telling myself I can be classy again one day, but it's not going to be

now.

Once he goes off to his own home. Yes. [00:02:00] Yes. Well, speaking of Christmas, we do have, well, our guest is not exclusively a Christmas related guest, but the timing here couldn't be better. Yes. Because we've got a lot to look forward to in December.

But let me, let me let me jump right in. So today we're going to be talking. To the founder and director of one of the most unique musical groups in the Triangle. If not, honestly, in the country. He's a graduate of Penn State, a husband, father, and grandfather. And... Clue number one, he began his career in a church music group.

Okay, our guest, our guest is a conductor, teacher, writer, and has helped populate, popularize, excuse me, this special type of music in 39 states, probably more by this, by this reading, and he's traveled to England, France, Puerto Rico, Canada, the Caribbean. So he's moving around with this. The group that he founded, He's almost 34 years old and draws big crowds to Maimondi Concert Hall every December for an amazing holiday [00:03:00] concert.

If you see this group in concert or listen to one of their many CDs or watch a DVD or catch them on your local PBS station, you can expect everything from traditional hymns to Led Zeppelin or Queen. Did I mention that no two instruments in the group play the same note? Ringing any

bells yet?

It might be ringing a few bells.

That was for you Melissa. Thank you very much. I appreciate that pun. Welcome,

welcome David Harris of the Raleigh Ringers. Happy to be here. Thanks so much. Yes. Yes. And David is not our only guest today my wife [00:04:00] Cindy Cave is joining us as well. So if you chime in there, I got another

one. Nice, Adam. All right.

And Cindy is in here part because she is participating in a special choir that you're leading at for students and alums. So I'm sure we'll get a chance to talk about that. But welcome.

Thanks for being here. Oh, this is the time of year

for handbells. No kidding. No kidding. Well, I think, you know, we started talking about having you on the show, probably close well, six, eight months ago at least.

And when I brought it up to our editor, she said, oh, we have to do it at the holiday season, but. You were just telling Melissa, you guys are playing music year round, right? We

do. We start each year in January with auditions. And so we have folks sometimes that come in from great distances to, to audition for the group and then move to Raleigh sometimes.

So, but then, yeah, we have sort of a first semester of the year where we do general music hymn tunes, classical, like you said, a little rock and roll. And we take a little break in the summer and then about August we start. [00:05:00] Pulling in the Christmas tunes. Okay by December. We've got a full concert of of Christmas tunes for my Mandy Hall

Well, let's let's let's start over because I always like to go back to the beginning I did mention you started music in a church group.

I think bells I should say But is that is that where you began your was that where your musical instruments interest started or did you? Did you play other instruments? Yeah,

well back, back in central Pennsylvania in high school played, played a little bit of piano, played played in the band, sang a little bit, but very involved in, in the church music aspects, so both the choral parts and the, and the group.

The church decided to buy handbells. Handbells were brand new to the church back, I won't say how many years, but lots of years ago, and as it was in my family, it was kind of a requirement that any musical activity that happened in the church, we were automatically enrolled. We never signed a contract or anything, but we were right in there.

First practice to open the case of bells and my brothers and I got really [00:06:00] involved in handbells. And did that through high school. As you mentioned earlier, I went to school, Penn State down the road, not too far from home and, and substituted in a church choir there while I was going to school.

Couldn't really sign up full time. Then when when IBM brought my wife and I to this area we kind of, you know, we're Shopping around for churches a little bit on our priority list was do they have handbells? Do they have an active handbell choir that plays and then somewhere down the list, you know, they have a pretty good preacher too,

right?

What denomination are they? As long as they

have handbells, we're good. So, Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church locally, we joined, we played for a couple years and then I kept my arm twisted a little bit to direct the group, and what happened after that was we would do summer concerts. So we'd take all the music we worked on during the year, during the church year that we played in worship services, and pull them back for a little concert, add a secular piece.

And that became a strong interest of not only myself, but a core group of the people at the church. We said, we really [00:07:00] like this idea of, of doing a concert. Yes, we've always, you know, handbells in this country, 95 percent of them are, are church based. So somewhat unique to have a community based group, but we really liked the idea of, of outreach going to churches and showing bells to churches that didn't have bells.

But then, you know, doing concerts from a concert stage or. Oh, at churches as well. And that was 1990. We, we sprung in to, to start in the Raleigh Ringers. Got some bells on loan from the Handbell Manufacture up in Pennsylvania. We got some retirement centers that lent us, for many years, lent us rehearsal space and storage space for all the equipment we've acquired.

Since then we've had, you know, moved to having our own building and vehicles and so forth, so the, the group has really grown, but that's kind of how we got our start. That's

amazing. And like Adam touched on earlier well, one thing I will say is I, I know you, Dave, because I wrote a story about you exactly a year ago, November, December issue of Midtown about the Raleigh Ringers.

So I did get to know you a little [00:08:00] bit back then, but one thing that stood out with me back then was that a lot of your music that you play is, is rock and roll. It's not just traditional Christmas songs or traditional hymns from, from church, but you do like the Bohemian Rhapsody and good old Led Zeppelin.

How did you start?

Well, that was our third year 1992. And we were we had a lot of energy and excitement within the group, but small audiences. So we thought, we gotta get the word out about the Raleigh Ringers. And Santa flyers all over the, the triangle. And WRDU picked up one of these flyers

and said that Hold on, hold on, I have to interrupt you.

For our younger audience, a flyer is a piece of paper It's like a tweet. Yeah, that you A paper

tweet.

to a lamppost. Okay,

go ahead, I'm sorry. And WRDU is an old radio station.

Which Went country, but then came back. [00:09:00] Yes. Exactly. But yeah, they they had at that time not a syndicated, a local, a local show, the Reynolds and Silva show, and they invited us in to play what they thought was just gonna be jingle bells and Frosty the Snowman and all those kind of tunes that a lot of folks think are the only things handbells do is play Christmas songs.

Right. But we surprised them and had this, had a Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven prepared, and They thought that was really cool. So up until that point they were telling the really bad bell jokes and making fun of us Yeah, Adam type jokes, yes They came around and really thought that was pretty cool So that has become a tradition each time in December we unveil a new rock and roll piece Typically, it's from my era.

So classic rock and roll from the 70s and 80s kind of thing. So we have one right now. We're not telling anybody what it is, but you have to go to our concerts to, to get to, to hear the new album. Well,

and you guys get all involved too. I mean, you wear wigs and tie [00:10:00] dye and I mean, it's not just belts.

We got a fog machine. We got lasers. Nice. Nice. We

got it all. Yep. Well, I,

I did get to see your show last year this time, well, last December. And I can't remember, what was the new rock and roll? piece last year. Because you played a bunch of them. They were all great. I just

didn't remember. What we did last year was something a little different.

We did a medley. So we had been invited to play up in Cleveland for a handbell event up there. And since it was the Hall of Fame and so forth, we did a medley of all American rock tunes. Oh, nice. Four or five rock tunes put together. Gotcha. This year we got a brand new tune we've never done before, which we're really excited about.

Cool. Yep. Alright, well,

that'll get everybody's thinking. For sure. Well, this movement to community bells, right? So, you said there's not a lot of these around, but are there others? I mean, is there a community of community bells, so to speak? Absolutely,

yes. When we started in 90, we could only find maybe 8 or 10 groups around the country that were [00:11:00] not, based out of a church or a school group.

So it was relatively new. We had to come up with bylaws and, you know, organizational things cause we weren't part of a greater umbrella organization, if you will. Yeah. Now that, that part of the handbill world has grown to about, we think close to 200 groups around the country that are independent, that do their own So we, we have on several occasions have had get togethers where we had, we perform for each other and share ideas and so forth.

And it looks like there's one on the horizon. We're going to do probably next year where we have this group, they're called pinnacle where sort of the top groups get together and share ideas hopefully to take our art forward. Handbells has been., marginalize a little bit in that people, you know, people see them in churches, people put little small groups together.

And it really surprises people when, like when we played, we played with the North Carolina Symphony several times. To get on the stage with the symphony, have professional musicians on [00:12:00] the same stage as a handbell choir really helps to elevate. Yeah. What we do. And that's part of our goal is to really push this art forward.

Well,

I'm wondering if that's in fact, I mean, to me, that's interesting because hearing the bells in isolation, like just a bell choir, there is a quality of sound that I think it, We're sort of expecting when you mix it with other instruments. And I'm wondering if more and more of that is happening. Does that broaden the, what bells can do

basically?

Absolutely. Yeah. And, and it, and it combines with the nice thing about that. We've done things with choral groups and orchestras and bands and some brass groups and so forth that we can combine audiences. So audiences that have. That come to hear the brass group will also get to hear little handbells and think, well, that is pretty cool.

And vice versa, you know, we bring in some local artists that, you know, our audiences haven't seen before. So, it's nice to do that collaboration. Well,

let's talk about the audition process. You mentioned that it happens [00:13:00] in January, and I know when I wrote this story about the Rally Ringers, I was kind of surprised because I just imagine you get in, you stay in, but everybody has to re audition every January.

Is that

right? That is right. In fact, we have two charter members. Cindy and Sandy have been in the group since 1990, so for 33 years they've had to come to auditions and pass auditions. So yes, it's it's kind of surprising to most of the handbell world since yes, in a church situation, everybody's welcome and we'll figure out how to bring you in and Not the Raleigh Ringers.

It's cutthroat. It's

cutthroat, yeah. It sounds

like it. And it's the way other professional musicians work too, so it's kind of another one of those things that helps elevate what we do, I think. Yeah. It's not just a given. You know, you've got to keep up with your skills. And

does, does each player, Master a size of bell or a type of bell and they stick with that or are they?

[00:14:00] Interchangeable and they can play different.

It's a great question because in most

bell choir Adam. I just want you know He said that I had a great question Yeah, and

the

group that we'll talk about the Meredith group that we started we've kind of keep Within the semester keep in the same position. So most of the time in church groups that stay together for three or four months They do stay in the same spot So you play your C and D play your two bells and you're used to the way to those bells in the rally ringers We move people around so part of that is some of the biggest bells that we have are 17 pounds So that work that has to happen we want to spread out among several people so that they're not totally exhausted.

So one

person doesn't have one Popeye arm. Exactly. We spread

out the muscles. Exactly. So, and then, and then we also believe in our group is you know, it's an educational kind of thing. So you want to experience playing the big bells. Some of the little [00:15:00] bells, you have multiple bells in your hand, and that's a special technique.

And not everybody does that, but some people want to try it. This year you will put one or two of those newer folks up on those top positions, but, and

how many people are on, in the Raleigh Rankers? Is it

eight? Generally around seven, 16, 17, 18 each year depending on auditions. And we only play with...

And each song 14 or 15. So everybody has a couple of pieces if they rest and they are also available for substituting. If we have a medical emergency or COVID.

Well, that would be another reason for everybody to play all the different positions. Yeah, exactly. Because that just gives you that peace of mind that you're not going to be without somebody critical.

Yep. So that person that's out has another folder and they're watching, they know the rhythm, you know, they know the tempos, they know what to expect and they can easily. More easily jump in and substitute. Now,

you said people are traveling down here for auditions. This is voluntary, correct? I mean, no one's paid to play.

It's obviously [00:16:00] an, an avocation that people take incredibly seriously, but there's a huge time commitment and, and if they're moving...

That's impressive. Yeah, we've had folks come from Florida, Colorado so forth. And they come and audition and then end up oftentimes, if they pass auditions, moving and relocating their families.

But we also have people that live. three plus hours away. So we have people that commute each week from the Norfolk area and also from Charlotte, from Winston Salem, that come in each week for rehearsals and performances and go back home because they're just so into this instrument. These are very dedicated musicians that love what they do.

See, I'm just

imagining that same person coming around a year later for auditions, being really nervous now that they've moved their whole family here.

Yeah. Oh gosh, yes. Yeah. Okay. Well, I was just sitting here thinking, I don't think I have a talent. Oh, like, like an, an instrument . Adam just looks at me like, yeah,[00:17:00]

I, I think I've never played an instrument. I'm sure you have a talent. No, I just, but to, to have an instrument, you know, a musical talent like that. I think it's quite. remarkable. I really do. I have a lot of respect for people that know how to play something or really just do something with their lives.

You're giving me too much. I

know, I know. You're giving me too much. I see the, I see the wheels turning. Yeah, the wheels turning. But that's so, I just think that's neat. Do you find that most of the people that come get started as, as children in church?

Typically, yeah. Yeah. We've had some that have done.

College handbell choirs that have come to us, but most of them, yeah, they've started

really young. What about you Cindy? When did you get started with handbells in

California when I was like,

I think eighth grade, okay And you were in church as well when you got started. Yes. Okay. Okay, Trinity United Presbyterian Church.

Okay. Yes And did you like it up right away and you were just hooked on it? I did it was it was a [00:18:00]

Pretty big choir, and we did a little touring, and so it was kind of like a, it was a fun thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. And and then I was at Meredith and I did it as a freshman at the Meredith

Ringers. So, Meredith, Meredith had the ringing going on back when you were an undergrad.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. And has it continued all this time, or did it drop off and come back, or, no, I think it

stopped for a while. Yeah, I believe it's been 10 or 12 years that the bells were not even used

till, But they're, they're, they, they own the bells. They have their own set. There it is.

Okay. Yes, we have a set of

bells.

Gotcha. Okay. And that's a real investment, right? I mean, that's what I've seemed to understand is that having a set of bells, it isn't something that you take lightly. Like, it can just go down to,

Instruments aren't cheap. That's for sure. No, but this is a lot of instruments. My son just started playing the trombone.

Which is really fun to listen when he is, he does not have a natural born talent for it, but he would like to learn. And it's, [00:19:00] it's like hearing a hippopotamus die as he's learning. But I do feel like. It might get better.

Take him to see Trombone Shorty. Who I think is coming in concert. I think he's coming back.

Oh, that would

be neat. I've never even heard of this person.

You gotta go see Trombone Shorty. You'll love Trombone Shorty. Really? Oh,

it's a great, yeah. But I'll tell you, just, I mean, renting, I don't even know if he's just making up this name. No, no, he's

a New Orleans jazz. Oh,

cool. And he's really fun. It's a very energetic pop band.

Anybody with the nickname Shorty, I'm there. Yeah, exactly. It's New

Orleans. Yeah, did I say New Orleans? What did I say? Nahlins?

Or,

I wasn't sure you said. Did I say, did I say, I said

some other place? I think, I think he said New Orleans. Did I, did I say it all wrong? No, I don't know. But no, my point was Even just renting his trombone is quite expensive.

So I can imagine that having an entire hand bell, and you brought in some today, Dave, and [00:20:00] they're quite beautiful. All different sizes, and I can imagine the cost. So maybe that's why programs don't often

have them. Yeah, the set of bells we own a little bit over 200, 000 worth. Really? Wow. That big bell that I'm sure we'll play a little bit later.

is five, about 5, 500 just for that one bill. Ooh, I

should not have picked that up. That was risky.

That was risky. We were all, I saw how nervous he got when you came to work.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah, and I'm just like, oh, I'll just fling this around.

So, you mentioned bills being made in Pennsylvania.

Coincidence that that's where you're from? I mean, was that just sort of a, or was that, was that something you were aware of? Is that, is that a

place they get... Absolute coincidence. Yeah, they're, they're the two main manufacturers of handbills. In the United States are both near Philadelphia. Wow. Schumarick and Mallmark and that's probably the largest percentage of bells really in the world are those two manufacturers.

The other one, and I brought some samples of those, Whitechapel bells, [00:21:00] which have a deeper history and they make a lot of the tower bells are made in London. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. Wow, wow. So Big Ben is from there. And the cracked Liberty Bell is, is, is this is theirs. It's from white Chapel Foundry. Yeah.

But they also make handheld hand bells. Interesting.

Is there a lot of kind of correlation between hand bells and tower bells? I mean, in terms of like,

yes. Well, that's it. I mean, I'll, I'll give you a compliment for a great question. So we're tied now. All right.

I gotta start thinking then for my next one.

No, that actually, that's how handbells got their start. So, in London, you know, we have the tower bells. There's. 6, 7, 8, in, you know, up in a tower. And they don't generally play songs or tunes, they play just combinations, all the different permutations of those bells. They play 6, and people pull big ropes [00:22:00] to play those in those orders.

And they play those orders, it's called change ringing, they play those orders by what's in their brain. They just know I'm coming here and I know this. And what, what ended up happening is You know, as they're learning to do that, it was not that pretty sound. So they thought we need handheld versions of those same notes so we can take them outside and not disturb the whole community.

And so the story is they would actually started in pubs. They would bring six or eight. handheld tower bells, which turned into handbells, and did their patterns, and then maybe had a beer and tried it again and then when I perfected it, they brought it to the tower and did the ropes. So really handbells were not initially invented to play songs.

And as a story goes, when they came over to our country and... Barnum and Bailey did all their stuff that it was really a circus thing, and that's where they first started playing songs was through the traveling circus.

Now I feel [00:23:00] like some Tower Bells do play songs now. They do now, yes. And I don't know, so, but that's a more of a recent...

Yeah. So they, do they always have all the notes available to them? I mean, or, I mean, I mean,

it's kind of based on what your church could afford. Right. Yeah. So, and, and a lot of times they would, just like with handbells, we start with a smaller set. Add, add, add until they had maybe every note. But yeah, typically it's a smaller number.

Six or

eight. Does your group have the, every bell there is to have? Like, do you have the complete set? Or are you missing anything? I just remember my little church growing up. It was a very small set. And I was always just Loved when the choir, handbell choir would come out because I just think it's such a beautiful sound.

They didn't have any, any of these things that I'm seeing on this table over

here. Yeah, so generally most groups have three octaves. And as you grow and get the funds to add, you add on either end to a fourth to a [00:24:00] fifth. And most people stop at five octaves. Our main set of bell, bells are seven and a half octaves.

So that takes us down, and all the bells have the, the, the note on them and then the octave number. So today we have seven and a half octaves from that G1, the largest bell, to the tiniest thimble size, C9. And that, as far as the bells they commercially sell, yes, those are all. all the bells they sell of our main set.

Now we have, you know, some of these other bells are unique bells. Like I said, the ones made in London, we have Dutch bells made in Holland. And you know, we've got also got choir chimes, so they don't look like bells, but those tubular looking instruments. Are often used by children's groups, sometimes senior groups.

They're a little more durable. You don't have to be so careful with gloves. But they provide a different kind of tone and a variation that we use in our concerts. So, and they're more, more or less a a tuning [00:25:00] fork. You can hold the bottom. That doesn't vibrate. But on the side of them, when you pick them up, you can look at that.

And it, and it has just looks like a tuning fork on its side. So that. That's kind of the different instruments. So we like to, you know, that's one of the fun things about our group is we have a lot of these wonderful resources. As we get a new song, we might say, Ooh, let's try White Chapels on this middle part.

Just to give, again, some variation to the sound. You know, we do an hour and a half, two hour concert. It's like, Oh, we don't want all the same. Yeah. So we do not only a variety of kinds of tunes, but a variety of the instruments we like to bring out to keep things fresh. Now

you you said seven and a half octaves, and I'm trying to compare that to a piano.

Like a full size piano is how many octaves? You should, you should know that. I don't

know that. Listen, she could, she could tell me four and a half, and I would believe her. Six or

seven? I'm just thinking, I'm thinking we're close. There's also a smaller

piano, remember, and

a larger piano. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. [00:26:00] But that's basically it. I mean, I think, when I think of the piano, I think of kind of you're covering your...

Covering all your options. But when he was saying octaves earlier, my mind went straight to the NBC. What kind of sound that they make? Boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Is that a hand bell? That was my next very smart question.

There it goes. Well, since we're talking about all these bells, let's listen to a few. I think that would be really fun. Yeah. And

I'm, I'm really curious what those, the tubular ones sound like. Yeah.

Well, let's start there. Well, Cindy yeah. Play a choir chime. These also are made in Pennsylvania by Mallmark.

And they sustain for a really long time. Play it like right,

kind of, in front. You don't have to stand directly in front of the mic. We're... Yep, but play it towards me. Oh, nice. Nice. See, now the mic picks it up nicely.

And if [00:27:00] you turn that to the side, you can see how that's basically a tuning fork. The top part is what vibrates, yeah. And why don't you take just a regular Mallmark bell that we play in 80 percent of our yeah, like that bell. Most of our concert will play that kind of bell. This is middle C.

Is it too loud, Joe?

And then on that same main set of bells we have, we can play the the lowest and highest, if you're willing to, Cindy, pick up the biggest one, the very lowest one, and our bottom 10 bells are made of aluminum.

So they're a little lighter, a little bit different sound to those. But this is,

guys, this is a big bell, though. I mean, cindy looks absolutely tiny next to it. Yes.

Alright. That's the sound of the aluminum. Now...

It's a giant bell, but it has such a low sound, too. I

don't expect that. The highest bell is that C9, [00:28:00] which we... It's very teeny. The handle is bigger than the actual bell there. It's just a little thimble. And it doesn't last very long at all.

Yeah, no

sustain.

Yeah. So, that's that, Bill. That's sort of a higher mall mark, but not that high. It's a G6. Yeah. It's a G6. Oh, that's nice. That is nice. Now, a common, the one with the leather handle here, closest to me, is that one, is a white chapel bell. So that's a very common bell that that we'll use in our concert for a different sound.

They actually have leather handles and leather clapper mechanisms, so it's a historical thing. This is how they've always done it, and they're very solid, stable bells that... We love these, but maybe more of a metallic sound to those. And it lasts a long time, too. And it does [00:29:00] last. Yeah. Now we can get into some really unique bells.

The other one with a leather handle, that's a Pettit Fritzen Dutch Bell. You can play that one. It's just like, regular. The overtones, so that, yeah, play that bell, you'll see. Oh. That sounds more like a tower bell. It does! Yeah, yeah. Sounds very churchy. When we try to simulate doing that change ringing, we often use those, those bells to do the, the permutations.

Yeah. And When you hear a hand bell, you hear a lot, mostly the, the primary tone, but you also hear what's called overtones above that, that make up, basically the characteristic of that bell. Yeah. The 12th overtone above the, above the fundamental. Those bells have different overtones than our normal English hand bells.

Those are Dutch bells. [00:30:00] Now that is, that one that you just picked up is a very unique instrument. You're going to have to come close to the mic with that because it's played pretty soft. That's a different shape too. Yeah, it's a different shape. Yeah, it's... It's a Deegan bell. Yeah, you can see the profile, the shape is different and it's a plastic handle.

And we've, two or three songs we've used that, those on, but. So

you mentioned the plastic handles and the leather handles. Does that make a difference in how the instrument plays?

As far as the grip that the ringers use, yes. As far as the sound, not, not really. I think the only one we maybe haven't, Oh no, Silver Melody Bell.

Well yeah, do that, that one, the lower one first, yeah. That's also made by Whitechapel. And this one is called a Cup Bell. It has no clapper inside. You have to play it with a mallet. Again, a little bit different overtones, kind of

like a tower bell. Now, I seem to remember when the concert that I saw, a lot of times the really [00:31:00] big bells were laid down and were played on the table with a mallet.

That was kind of a common way of playing, as opposed to picking them up. Yep.

And oftentimes for fast passages, that's the only way to make it happen. Yeah,

because it takes a bit of work to pick that thing up. Exactly. So we do

a lot of things with mallets. So, the only other one we didn't play, I think, is a silver melody, which is very different.

It's a cup looking bell. It's played much like a hand bell. It's made by the other U. S. manufacturer, Schumrich. And, again, has a unique sound that we highlight lines within our music with those. That's

great. So you were saying that sometimes the technique they're playing multiple bells with the same hands.

Right. And what's a typical, like, range of notes that a musician is responsible for in a, in a, in a piece?

With the, with the exception of the low bass Typically, every assignment are two notes, so you get, you know, [00:32:00] a line and a space basically on the musical score and then the accidentals around those.

But as we see as we work through pieces, there may be spots where, oh, I've got three in a row. That's really quick. You may get a neighbor to help you with that bell. So there's a lot of teamwork involved in figuring out. Because I

still remember people putting down bells and picking up other bells. So I got the impression that there was more like four or five notes, maybe, that they were, or six notes that they were responsible for.

Usually

a couple of accidentals, so typically four for most positions. The bass bells have you know, each song they will pick up and, and place in the back the ones that aren't used in that song because they take up so much real estate. Yeah. On the table. The top people that ring on the top, you know, four positions or so, They, they're the ones that often have two in each hand, occasionally three in each hand.

The clappers only go one direction, so it's not like a dinner bell where you could just shake it and it rings on all sides of the bell. They only go one direction, so they hold them in their hands [00:33:00] such that if they hold their hand this way, one goes, hold their hand a different way the other one goes.

Oh, nice. That's it. And that's a special technique that not, usually not everybody in a handbell choir acquires those skills or needs to acquire those skills. Right, right. So

do you ever play or, or are you only

conducting? Well, if my ringers are listening to this podcast, they will tell you I do not play.

And that's, there's a reason for that. Yeah, no, I only conduct. And that's what I enjoy more than anything else. I did grow up with ringing bells, but I, you know, I, I do enjoy. I get the best seat in the house, you know. You get to hear all the bells. So yeah, I enjoy conducting.

Is there one song that you can think of, particularly maybe a Christmas song?

That is the most difficult that you guys play every year?

Maybe not that we play every year, but some of the, the dances from the Nutcracker that we played. Oh, okay. Waltz of the Flowers, I remember as one, Waltz de Fleur is, is, is, on the more difficult ends. So yeah, [00:34:00] some of the Nutcracker pieces at Christmas.

But we, we vary our program every year and don't... There's a few songs that are standard for us. We always end our concert with, with Silent Night, with Candles and Mamandy Hall and so forth. So there's certain standard things, but other than that, we mix it up quite a bit each year. And is

that in some way determined by the players?

I mean, in terms of like, everybody's really firing, everybody's really getting this song, no one's getting this song, we're gonna scrap it and try something different, or I mean...

Some of that is determined as we work through the season and say, well, maybe next year might be the best time

for this particular

song.

Yeah. Because some songs, you know, I mean, there's a lot of different levels of difficulty because some songs will come together in a month. Others will take four or five months. And we may not have that much time and we better wait and keep working on it. Okay.

Well, this is a great segue to a question. I really have been wanting to ask you because at the concert I went to, you gave a lot of, honor is the best way to put it to the writers of this [00:35:00] music.

You told extensive stories about the people who are writing this music. So this is obviously a special breed who take music that was written for maybe orchestra or symphony or rock and roll band and then turn it into handbell music. So my question is, what does that entail doing, you know, and is it something you've tried to

do?

It's not something that I, you know, I will, I will do some little intros and pick out pieces of, of, of music, but I'm not a composer, but I certainly value the amazing work that the composers and the arrangers do for us. So we, we play both music Original music so written just for handbells. Okay, a lot of pieces that here's a brand new tune Written just for handbells during the Christmas season.

We do less of that. It's more arrangements of things But it does I mean oftentimes it takes, you know, studying the entire orchestral score. We have several that have done [00:36:00] big pieces and tried to bring as many of those instruments into the handbell score as possible, making it sometimes pretty difficult.

As far as the rock and roll pieces go Keith Burt in our group has been the one lately doing those. And he will spend you know, we can get a little bit of sheet music on some of the tunes and kind of a template for the piece. But as far as listening to the guitar solos and the idiosyncrasies of this instrument coming in that lots of time, just listening and trial and error many, many hours before he puts the rock and roll.

But we try to, we try to, you know, occasionally we'll have a percussion instrument where we try to do an entire rock piece with just our instrument with just handbells. So.

Yeah, it's a lot of work. Yeah, I would think yeah, I would say so and I is the music itself Different from from the music. I mean, I I read sheet music as a kid And would I if I picked up a piece of handbell sheet music would I basically be looking at the same?

Yeah,

pretty much piano score be very similar. What what's [00:37:00] surprising to people when they sometimes come up to The the music stands to see what our music looks like they think well, this must be the bass music This must be the treble music. This must be different You know in most in most instrumental groups You have your own scores only the director has everything in front of them right and hand bells every ringer has everything in front of them.

They have the director's score, so they can see, well, I might not have the melody here, I need to be softer, because the melody is up here, and so forth. So, every ringer has all notes and has to find their notes within the full score, which for some people is a difficult task, because if you come from playing an instrument where I play the trumpet line, I, that's what I got.

Here's the trumpet line. Yeah, yeah. You got to find, as Cindy will know, you got to find within the score and sometimes we might need to mark a few things, we don't like to circle all our notes, but we, we try to find here's the C and here's the D, and every time I see it, I play it. If it's not there, I damp my bells, I stop my bells.

So that makes it a little bit unique.

And, and I think it [00:38:00] would require eyesight, I don't have. I mean, to be perfectly honest, you know, it's like you're looking at that. I mean, it's a lot of notes on

a page with my lack of talent, your lack of eyesight. We're just together,

together. We're the perfect handbell.

Well,

let's talk about the, the Meredith college group and how that. started coming back. Yeah. Because you guys said it was gone for a

while. Because they have you as an adjunct professor there, is that right? Yeah, it was

pretty I didn't realize that. When I sort of, retired, I guess not sort of, I really did retire from my IT career at IBM.

I said, you know, I'd like to just do handbell stuff and I wonder what other opportunities there would be besides Raleigh Ringers. And I do some workshops outside of Raleigh sometimes, but knowing, Some of the members of the Raleigh Ringers had played in the Meredith Group in the past. I knew there were bells there.

Yeah. And I knew they weren't active. So I I contacted the music department and said, Do you guys have any interest in bringing back the handbells? And [00:39:00] I ended up meeting with the department head. We went back in a closet way, way back in a practice room, opened three doors. It was a little, like, a little secret area.

And there they were, the cases of Bells. They weren't in the best shape. We did a lot of work to, as Cindy will remember, to the first polishing

we did. Yeah, you were telling me, right? They were. You started off just polishing

Bells. And there were a lot of parts we had to replace and they were not in the best shape, but we got them into working shape in the spring and did the spring semester.

Just this

spring? Yeah. 2023. Oh, okay. Yeah. So this is really a brand new. This is the

second time around. Yeah, we did a little concert in May, I guess it was, or April. April, we did a concert for the spring semester and we'll do a concert at the end of November, right after Thanksgiving

for, but so it's not for just current students though, because Cindy is back.

So you've welcomed. people that used to play at Meredith to come back? Actually, we

welcome anyone in the community. Meredith College has what I'm pretty sure is called the Community School of Music, [00:40:00] or Community Music School that they invite not only for handbells, but there's choral groups, and you can take...

Private lessons, you can do all kinds of things, not being a student, but taking advantage of the facilities there and the instruments there and the teachers there. That's great. So a large part of our group are either have played before or have wanted to play hand bells and are not students. We only have, you know, a handful of students, but a lot of them are.

you know, previous ringers, whether they're Meredith or, you know, and they want to just play some bells and we get together Wednesdays and and we almost kind of, it almost didn't happen because at first they put out like a, some information. I just happened to see it on like a alumni page and I was like, Oh, handbells and Meredith.

And we were supposed to register, but

Nobody did. Half of us.

Nobody did that. No.

Only like three people did.

Yeah. And we had that meeting and it was like, I think it might have been as many [00:41:00] as five or six officially registered. We thought, well, we'll just get together and talk about handbells and see if we want to do this in the future.

And 30 people came to that first meeting. A few dropped out. And then, so that first semester, we really had two separate choirs. This year we've combined, we have kind of one and a half, so we don't have enough to have two groups that perform. So we have, we have doubled some of the instruments and we do it that way and with one rehearsal.

But yeah, it's, it it was surprising to a lot of folks that there was that much

interest. How much of the interest is coming from alum versus.

It's stronger on the alum side now and, and we're hoping that the students, you know, the word of mouth and seeing the concert, you know, might, cause it was, you know, it was buried in the catalog.

Oh, there's this handbill thing and they've never had it before. And there really was not many posters around or anything else. So the word got out, you know, really strong through the alumni, but I don't think through the students yet. So we're going to work on that. I don't either. I also think our music is, is better.

Yeah. [00:42:00] Than it. Yeah, that's, it's much more, I think, advanced and fun and better than when I, when I remember playing.

Oh,

okay. When you were a kid or when you were at Meredith as a student. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well,

that's obviously, I mean, he's playing Led Zeppelin. I mean, that's, you don't get much better than that.

We have, we have more bells too. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We

have two sets at the time. I think we only had that one. Yeah.

Well, that's, that's interesting. I mean, I think one of the challenges that so many art forms are face is, you know, getting a young audience that's going to grow into an old mature audience. You know, I mean, we were, we were just, just this past weekend, we went to an event that was related to the to the Carolina ballet.

And you know, they were talking about the need to bring in a new, you know, bring in, widen their broaden their audience, you know, so this is. I think something a lot of cultural groups and art groups, dance and theater constantly [00:43:00] striving to get younger people involved and obviously getting people playing music, that's so much better than just listening.

I think that's awesome. And the other thing I want to mention it's coming up this week and I know this will probably not be available until after this, but one thing that What ringers like to do is to gather in large massed groups so every November, typically the first weekend of November, we have at the fairgrounds what we call a Capital Area Handbell Festival.

We bring in a national clinician a well known person this year, it's somebody who's also a composer of music, and we have anywhere between 300 and 500 ringers. So many, many churches get together, rehearse together under that leader's under the leadership of that clinician and then do a final concert with all of those bells playing and it's a very, Cindy's gonna take part in this this weekend.

It's a neat experience to hear that many bells. We're gonna be in Carr Scott building filling that room with sound. It's really, it's really a neat thing. So that's another gathering. Sometimes we have classes and share ideas, workshops and [00:44:00] so. Well how

often is the Meredith group? performing. And, and is it just at Meredith?

Are you guys going to be going around

or? Right now we've, we've ended our semester with a final concert in their recital hall there. Okay. We've done that. We've also offered this opportunity to be part of this festival to the ringers and a few of the ringers are going to do that. We hope, because I know the group in the past, you know, went to nursing homes and did some other community things.

I hope that will, it will grow into to get on the road and do a little bit more. But right now we're just

doing fun.

Yeah,

that sounds

great. And tell us about PBS and DVDs and any other acronyms I can throw out.

Yes, well, Rally Ringers have recorded eight different CDs and a couple different DVDs.

And the DVDs we're part of each of those DVDs. Were were holiday specials that U-N-C-T-V now it's PBS nc took forward not only, and played all over North Carolina, but [00:45:00] syndicated that across the country. Mm-Hmm. so. Our, our holiday specials have been shown in 45 states around the country. Wow, that's neat.

They can choose when to play them. They're syndicated. Do they pop up every year? I mean, is it pretty? They do. It's up to each individual PBS station what, you know, when they want to play it. But certainly since, since UNC and since PBS NC sponsored that originally, they play it usually at some awesome times, right?

Christmas Eve. Oh, that's great. The weekend before Christmas and some great times. So that's been, that's been really cool for the Raleigh Ringers, but more than that for Handbells, because we heard stories about, oh my gosh, in some remote areas, which PBS reaches, Yeah. they never heard of this instrument.

It's still kind of a niche thing, you know. And, and people got, joined choirs or started choirs because they saw that Raleigh Ringers special. So, we always like to thank PBS For, because it's, handbells are sometimes a hard thing, a hard sell. Yeah. Cindy knows about handbells because she grew up. If you didn't grow up with handbells, you're like, [00:46:00] you step up on the, you know, somebody comes, where are you going over this rehearsal and you're, you're, you're gonna.

Okay, that sounds not fun. I wouldn't, I wouldn't

think that, because I, to me, I, I always looked at it as it's not an an intimidating instrument. So, I would think that, that would be kind of a great beginner instrument for people that have never played anything.

Yeah, I, I hear what you're saying. It's like, you know, you, I've always, I was always immensely intimidated by brass instruments, because you were going to have to, Make so many decisions with your mouth in terms of tone and everything else.

And you didn't

want to sound like a dying hippo.

Exactly.

You know, so, You do have to read music. Well, okay, fine. That means all my friends who play guitar basically can't do it. But is it the

same? Is it the same type of music sheets? Or like you mentioned earlier that it's, you can see the, the one, the two, or I don't know.

I don't know anything about

music sheets. The music looks just like what a piano score would look like. Okay, okay. There's certain rules [00:47:00] and special techniques that have markings that are unique to handbells, but most of it's just the same. Yeah.

Okay, I really, I really assumed it was different.

Timing. I definitely think you could learn it.

Yeah. Yeah. If you had even one bell. Yeah. What's unique about this instrument is, I mean, and I don't like to think of these as all little separate instruments, but the whole collection has one instrument. Right. You're playing one instrument with 13, 14 people. Yeah. So you say, yes, we can jump in and. You know, there's a lot of people doing it, so it may not be as intimidating yet.

You know, if you miss that F5, you're the only one

playing that F5.

thumb, yes. You talk about the trumpet, there's four people, four trumpeters playing that same line, so you take a break, we'll probably won't miss you for a little bit. Or if

you mess up, you can blame the guy sitting next to you. Right, right, right.

This is true, this is true. If you're playing melody,

and you definitely know. Yeah. But sometimes if you're playing... You know, like a backup. [00:48:00] Okay. Bell, you can get away with missing a note. Like I have.

Well, no, I think that's really interesting to think about it as one instrument with multiple musicians as opposed to multiple instruments because that's a totally different way of kind of from my brain to re look at it.

There used to be a youth group that did a lot of traveling. They're nonexistent anymore. And to demonstrate that, they memorized all their music, which was really cool. But they would say, you know, tell the audience that never saw Handbells before, do you understand what we have to do here? And they would, they would, and they were little kids that could fit around the piano.

They all, 13 of them, went around the piano on their particular keys and played the song that they just played on handbells, demonstrating that I only play these two notes, you play these two notes, you play these two notes, and they play the whole song. The audience all of a sudden went, Oh, now I get it.

You're like playing that piano, but just a little part of that with all these [00:49:00] hands. Oh my God. Yeah. So that

was, that was always a cool demonstration. Yeah. Now, one thought that occurred to me, you mentioned that the bells were kind of different. invented essentially to be practiced for these church bells.

For tower bells. For tower bells. But I'm wondering if now, if church groups often think of them as sort of almost a replacement of the tower that most churches don't have, right? I mean, there's very few churches that have bells in a tower, right? That's a pretty uncommon thing. I

just didn't know. Many churches chime the hour on handbells.

I've, I've been to churches that, that do that. That's, every week they come in with a, a group of kids often that do a little pattern of things and then, you know, it's eleven o'clock, they do eleven strokes of a handbell. That's awesome. Yep. So it does happen. Yep. Yeah.

That's a nice connection. I like that.

Well, let's talk about, we are almost, I think, close to the top of the hour here, and you've got a few concerts coming up soon. [00:50:00] Yes. In fact, even in the next few days, I think, from when this is going to, this broadcast comes out. So tell us a little bit about the December schedule for the, for the ringers.

Yes. December 16th and 17th, Saturday and Sunday, we'll be at Mamandy Hall. Both matinee performances. We've over the years done evening performances, but people like to come out with families and so forth and do the matinees. So they're both afternoon performances at Mamandy Hall. You can get group tickets and senior tickets and youth discounts and so forth, but we're excited to be back in, in Mamandy.

We've played in Mamandy pretty much at, since it, at Christmas time, since, since it opened. So it's been sort of our home. That's awesome.

That's awesome. Well we'll look forward to that and hopefully a lot of our listeners can get out and hear more than just a few sample sounds. That could be

a new tradition for some people listening.

Yeah. I would love to

go. And when's the next Meredith concert?

It's not in place yet, but it'll be probably April. Cool. Awesome.

Okay. Nice.

More to look forward to. Absolutely. [00:51:00] Thank you so much, both of you, for coming out and talking. And sharing the

bells. That was a treat to

listen to. Yes. Bringing in the holiday season with us. Oh, you got one in. You know I had to get one in there.

Yes. I will say, I know that Joe's gonna try to edit out some of our phones beeping and texting and my watch, I think, is going off. Just don't. It sounds like nice little handbells in the background.

Ding! Ding! Well, thank you all and happy holidays.

Happy holidays. Thanks..